Venice Noir Comes to #TheakstonsCrime

Saturday 25 July 2026

Duration: 30 minutes

Swift Half Stage, Old Swan Hotel

Tickets FREE

A unique preview of this November’s international festival in the city that more than any other embodies mystery and narrative tension.

Lucy Worsley on Agatha Christie; Ian Rankin, Denise Mina and Ambrose Parry leading a Scottish delegation to talk about Jekyll and Hyde; those Harrogate favourites Mark Billingham, Clare Mackintosh, Elly Griffiths and Abir Mukherjee…just a few of this year’s highlights.

Join programme directors and authors Philip Gwynne Jones and David Hewson, alongside Erin Kelly and leading pathologist Suzy Lishman, for a personal, behind-the-scenes introduction to this free four-day festival which takes place in some of Venice’s most beautiful and historic locations.

If you love crime fiction and want to see how a major international festival comes together, and how the connection to Harrogate makes this a wonderful partnership, you won’t want to miss this, it’s the perfect lunchtime break to discover something new and unique.

This event is brought to you by: Venice Noir

Swift Half events are intended for those already on site; if you book a Swift Half ticket only, you will need to purchase a Site Pass.

Discover Venice Noir ‘the most beautiful book festival in the world’

Ian Rankin

Venice Noir

Inspired by the great international literary festivals, Venice Noir is an annual event dedicated to fans of noir, the thriller and the genre fiction in the city that more than any other embodies mystery and narrative tension: Venice. It is not only the setting of the festival, but its soul: an inexhaustible source of inspiration for Italian and international noir.

Venice Noir began in 2023 as a talk by three British authors in Studium, the main bookstore in the city centre. In three years, the festival has grown to become a four-day international event dedicated to popular fiction with some of the best-known authors from around Europe, all hosted in the magnificent locations only Venice can offer.

The festival includes events, talks, presentations and debates both in English and in Italian. Like Venice itself, the festival is unique and unforgettable, and reveals the secret soul of the city.